Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Sunday under Three Heads by Charles Dickens
page 5 of 37 (13%)
impossibility to get up again--to say nothing of walking about,
which is entirely out of the question. Away they go, joking and
laughing, and eating and drinking, and admiring everything they
see, and pleased with everything they hear, to climb Windmill Hill,
and catch a glimpse of the rich corn-fields and beautiful orchards
of Kent; or to stroll among the fine old trees of Greenwich Park,
and survey the wonders of Shooter's Hill and Lady James's Folly; or
to glide past the beautiful meadows of Twickenham and Richmond, and
to gaze with a delight which only people like them can know, on
every lovely object in the fair prospect around. Boat follows
boat, and coach succeeds coach, for the next three hours; but all
are filled, and all with the same kind of people--neat and clean,
cheerful and contented.

They reach their places of destination, and the taverns are
crowded; but there is no drunkenness or brawling, for the class of
men who commit the enormity of making Sunday excursions, take their
families with them: and this in itself would be a check upon them,
even if they were inclined to dissipation, which they really are
not. Boisterous their mirth may be, for they have all the
excitement of feeling that fresh air and green fields can impart to
the dwellers in crowded cities, but it is innocent and harmless.
The glass is circulated, and the joke goes round; but the one is
free from excess, and the other from offence; and nothing but good
humour and hilarity prevail.

In streets like Holborn and Tottenham Court Road, which form the
central market of a large neighbourhood, inhabited by a vast number
of mechanics and poor people, a few shops are open at an early hour
of the morning; and a very poor man, with a thin and sickly woman
DigitalOcean Referral Badge